I am younger than All in the Family, but I did watch it as a kid on one of the channels that played older shows. I thought it was hilarious, and had no idea that Archie Bunker was supposed to be despised. Yeah, his views were outdated, and ignorant, as his insufferable son-in-law reminded him in the smuggest way possible every day. But really watching him lay into Michael was the best thing about the show. So the message I got was Archie is wrong, and dumb, but Meathead here is bad too, and he needs to get a job, etc. So really, it undercut a lot of racial equality messaging by having Michael deliver the message. But, I was young, and I don’t think I have seen every episode.
It was Archie’s statements that were despised. He was often presented as someone spouting hateful rhetoric but shown acting more decently when faced with real life. He was like many in his generation, trapped within a simplistic political philosophy that was inadequate to deal with a complex reality and changing times.
I always felt uncomfortable with one aspect of “You’ve Got Mail” – the remake with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan of an earlier movie whose title I can’t recall just now. This version had them falling in love with each other by corresponding by email, though in reality they know each other and are antagonists.
However, HE finds out who she is, and DOESN’T TELL HER, long before she knows who he is.
I found this creepy, like he was stalking her.
The Shop Around the Corner.
Yes, we are in agreement on this. I apparently misunderstood your earlier posts.
The comments have reminded me of a movie scene that has always made me uncomfortable. The scene is from True Lies (1994), where Arnie anonymously tricks his wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) into doing a strip tease under the pretense that he is a top-secret government agent. (Yes, he is indeed a top-secret government agent in the movie, but she doesn’t know that at that point and believe she is with some OTHER top-secret government agent). She believes she is auditioning to be a seductress/spy of some kind for the US government.
The scene smacks of spousal abuse and is, frankly, extremely demeaning, especially for what is purported to be an action-comedy. I’d like to think that someone nowadays would have said, “Whoa! Do we really think that is appropriate, or even funny?”
Many of Archie’s statements and positions came from ignorance, rather than malice. As he got exposed to more people and more situations over the course of the show, you can see him change.
There were multiple situations where the Meathead was just as wrong as Archie, just in a different way. I don’t remember what episode it was, but Lionel got fed up with Meathead’s continuous attempts to show how sensitive he was to the “race problem.”
There must be a lot of romantic movies you hate then. Keeping silent about a romantic attraction is a staple of the genre.
I see Archie and his family as being intended to be a sort of mirror held up to the American population of the time - showing how there were misunderstandings and obtuseness on both sides of the issues, just like Archie’s household. Definitely at the time, a lot of older men were very Archie-like in many ways.
So by having Archie say the awful, ridiculous things, they were exposed in public as the awful, ridiculous things they were. And by pointing out the smugness of Michael, it brought that side into the light as well.
Of course with any sort of satire like that, you’re always going to end up with a crowd that sees the subject of the satire, doesn’t understand it, and thinks they’re right instead of seeing the satire and thinking about it. I imagine that a lot of racists at the time flat out didn’t get the satire, and just agreed with Archie.
I remember people wearing t-shirts reading, “Archie Bunker for President”.
I don’t think it’s a matter of audiences being tougher and having a better sense of humor back then, but there were also movies made in the past that would never be made today , at least not without changes, for reasons that really have nothing to do with insensitivity to women or minorities. In the 2005 remake of The Bad News Bears , Kelly Leak doesn’t smoke and I doubt Little Darlings could be made today without changing the premise of two fifteen year old girls having a bet on who could lose their virginity first ( it was changed for the TV version in 1983 ish)
One odd difference between older movies like the Porky’s series and later sex comedies like the American Pie series is the sheer amount of male nudity. The Porky’s films in particular were made by straight men for straight audiences, but actually have more male nudity than female, including full frontal. Thats not something you tend to see today unless it’s aimed at gay audiences.
I think what’s interesting about this is that in the past, the taboos (and the restrictions on what could be in a movie) came from above, from authority, eg the Hays code. Now, the taboos (and the restrictions on what could be in a movie) come from “below”, from the people and their feelings on what is right and wrong.
That is, “censorship” went from being a centralized top-down thing to being a distributed bottom-up thing.
I think that’s what’s causing some folks to have issue with today’s “this can’t be made” topics.
Having a centralized vs distributed censorship has different dynamics. With a centralized censorship authority, film makers are always trying to push the boundary of what they can get away with, and in general the audiences applaud their boundary-pushing attempts.
With no centralized censorship authority, and there being a decentralized societal pressure on what can be made, I feel film makers are not likely to push the boundaries of what can be made.
One can argue that what we have today is better or worse than in the past, but it is different
Also remade as a musical film called In the Good Old Summertime, with Judy Garland and Van Johnson, and a stage musical (with completely different songs) called She Loves Me. It’s a surprisingly durable premise.
All of them are ultimately based on a Hungarian play called Parfumerie.
It’s not just that sexual attitudes have changed - namely, the concept of consent is being taken more seriously, and the ‘thirsty guys trying to get laid at all costs and viewing women as sexual objects’ scenario is seen as a more toxic mentality - but also that comedic tastes have changed. Gross-out comedy is out, cringe comedy is very in. Situations that are viscerally embarrassing and uncomfortable on an emotional, rather than physical, level, are now what’s being explored for their comedic potential.
Teenagers trying to navigate the waters of sexual relations is always going to be a part of life that’s relatable to people, so I don’t think the “teenage sex comedy” is necessarily a nonstarter today, but for it to be considered a future classic rather than sordid schlock, it would need to be a bit more cerebral. The comic potential is still there.
The biggest change is that films can no longer offer any titillation that can’t already be indulged more effectively on the Internet. Same goes for any other potentially offensive matter. The reason filmmakers don’t make racist movies isn’t just because they are afraid of giving offense, it’s also because they can’t possibly compete with the racism readily available on the Internet.
I don’t know about that… that was certainly the case in 1981 with “Porky’s”, but “American Pie” came along several years after the Internet was popular. It was actually a somewhat unusual combination of more raunchy and less nude than the earlier movies like “Porky’s”, probably for the exact reason you mention.
I agree with @Lamoral that any teenage sex comedies that they come up with now will have to be more cerebral and less reliant on mere nudity to be successful. But I think in large part, we’ve already seen that with “American Pie” and to a lesser extent with “Eurotrip”. Both movies had nude scenes, but they were not the focus of the movies.
I’m wrong to some extent, in that there’s a huge raft of low budget “American Pie presents” and “National Lampoon’s” movies out there that are essentially those sorts of teen sex comedies, but R rated. I’m guessing it’s so they can be carried on Netflix, etc… and not run afoul of anti-porn crusaders and the like. And some less low budget ones like “Sex Drive”. To some extent, “Hot Tub Time Machine” is sort of a meta take on a teen sex comedy.
But as far as teen sex comedies that are part of the public consciousness… they’re going to have to be pretty different now.
Here are two shows that if they were tried to be made today, they would have to rework them so much they wouldn’t be that show:
I Dream Of Jeannie
Small Wonder
I don’t understand this distinction. Suppose I grew up in a back woods area of West Virginia or Mississippi. My family for two generations taught me that black people were inferior and I adopted the belief. That belief certainly comes from ignorance. At the same time it is very malicious. It harms people. It is intentional and malicious even if it is spawned by ignorance. So, respectfully I don’t see the distinction.
To the topic of the thread, I think that all of the shows and movies that have been mentioned, Porkys, Blazing Saddles, All In the Family were successful for a couple of reasons. One, they were parodies. They mocked what society had long since abandoned, BUT Two, they recognized the underlying views out there than couldn’t be expressed in “polite society.” Of course, as in Porky’s, high school boys don’t place their penises through the girls’ locker room via a hole in the tiling. It’s absurd.
But, it explores the idea because many 16 year olds (not all or even most) would think that is a good idea and would like it. Archie’s statement about how one must be a “certified fag” to teach school in California is laughable because it is absurd, but it captured the belief of people at the time that homosexuals should not be school teachers. That doesn’t play well 50 years later, but it did then.
It is important for the principles of free speech and ideas to have a broad and ranging expanse. A poster upthread said something about how society has decided that your viewpoint isn’t worth listening to.
That is where free speech is most important. We don’t need the First Amendment for popular ideas. Those ideas are a fortiori protected by the fact that n nobody will ever prosecute a popular instance of speech. Any such freedom can only be for a minority viewpoint.
The point of this is that the cancel culture says “no minority viewpoints”! Back in the day, if you didn’t like Blazing Saddles or Porky’s you watched the next movie down the aisle. If you didn’t like Arch, you flipped over to another network. Today that isn’t enough. There must be an expungement of all contrarian views, even if the view, like Arch, is a piece about a mockery of his views.
It is really a sad time for this country and what the left fought so hard for 60 years ago.
Somebody acting from malice is very unlikely to ever change their views or behavior. Somebody acting from ignorance quite possibly will change their views and behavior once their ignorance has been “cured” by knowledge.
Somebody acting from malice is saying, in effect, “I act this way because I hate Group X.” Somebody acting from ignorance is saying, in effect, “I act this way because I have never learned any better.”
See the difference now?